Optical fiber communications use an optical module in which optical devices such as a laser, a photodiode, and an optical waveguide, and an optical fiber for transmitting information are optically coupled to each other. For such an optical module, it is important to establish efficient optical coupling between optical devices and between an optical device and an optical fiber and to keep the coupling stable with low possibility of aging variation. As lens optical components each configured by optically aligning a lens, a lens housing and a lens holder for establishing an optical coupling, there have been known a lens optical component illustrated in FIGS. 1A to 1C (Patent Literature 1), for example.
As illustrated in FIG. 1A, a lens optical component 15 has a structure in which a lens housing 2 holding a lens 1 is supported by a lens holder 10. The lens holder 10 has a structure in which a pair of side plates 11 are disposed vertical to one surface of a flat-plate-shaped support member 12 and arranged in parallel. In order that the pair of side plates 11 can support the lens housing 2 from both sides, a distance between the pair of side plates 11 is set to be slightly smaller than or equal to a width W of the lens housing 2. Moreover, this lens optical component 15 is incorporated in a package in such a way that the lens housing 2 and the lens holder 10 are fixedly welded to each other at points 11a, 11b, and the lens holder 10 is fixedly welded to a not-illustrated device carrier at points 12a, 12b of the support member 12. For the welding, YAG laser welding is employed.